Camp mabry 1915, facing north from mopac

New shoes

At flawn

Stinky!

so the snake was about four feet long, jumping (with what legs? -ed.) from branch to branch in the creek trees. i first noticed it when it was about twenty feet in the air, and then only because the birds were all flipping out and screaming, and fluttering from branch to branch keeping an eye on it. it's rare that a mated cardinal pair, a woodpecker (who almost got got, when he wasn't paying attention), a female grackle, and a blue jay (and other assorted birds) all work together like that, right? i'd forgotten what a racket birds make when they see a snake. i saw one by the OAG garage once on my way to work during session. it was huge and slithered underneath a car in the metered spots, and there were more than twenty sparrows screaming and divebombing it and standing around on the sidewalk rubbernecking. a female grackle even hopped under the car to investigate and see where it went. i peeked too (not too close), but i guessed it went up into the transmission. oh well.

i borrowed joo's bike today. the seat's too low and it makes my knees groan in protest to ride it. i did talk to someone at work who has the san jose, and he said it's good for rides less than thirty miles, and if you're going faster than twenty mph the older frames shudder. so, yay and shit.

This is my snake-in-a-tree picture.

isa

isa
Originally uploaded by chizoo

ugh. so this kid, my dutch/chinese cousin, is barely thirteen. i remember when my brother and i went to her parents' wedding. *feebly shakes cane in the air*

if you look at the other pictures, you can see how light brown her eyes are too. i feel old. this is from a horrible, horrible clump of emails my dad sent last week. there were these, and then another cousin's (a really bitchy cousin) second kid was born a couple weeks ago, with the requisite email slideshow, and then my dad's older cousin's new kid is six months old now (and way cute, but not cute enough to post), and all this on top of going to a baby shower yesterday with lots (two) of babies there --- bleargh. stop it!

fuck it. i'm going to look at non-baby-infested parts of the internet. cobrasnake! last night's party! aah. i feel better.

dood.

i got paid today. i wonder how much $500 is in pennies. oh wait, i'm on the internet. hmm. it could weigh anywhere from 125 kg (275 lbs) to 155.5 kg (342.1 lbs). all right then. i won't cart it around on the bike. oh wait! i broke the bike today! i can't cart shit around on it! (technically it's not even my bike. it's billy's.)

one of the reasons i agreed to house-sit at the bergackens' was the allure of the batman homecoming, where your inertia gets you speeding like some guy with one testicle, or maybe greg lemond, who probably has the normal two, and then you punch the garage door opener as you zoom down the approach and hopefully don't slam into the door, which is taking its sweet time creeping upwards. too bad i seriously fucked up the back wheel (it's way off alignment now, wedged against the frame) on the first dip, and had to hump the bike the rest of the block. i'm just glad i didn't bring the ACTUAL BATMAN OUTFIT to wear for my ignominious forced march home. their home. whatever. this sucks. however, now we're at the next topic!

i've fallen in love with a bike, and also admire its poorer (cheaper?) american cousin. i want the bianchi san jose, but i might end up settling for the schwinn madison '08. yes, i will try out the fixie side of the flip-flop wheel, whichever one i get. you are all invited to come and watch as i pedal maniacally, but don't panic because i have brakes. the price difference isn't that huge, so i'm going to have to actually try out both and see which one is faster, lighter, and more comfy. the 2008 madisons will be at clown dog next month. the san jose is so sexy though. damn. [btw spacebeer, john at clown dog is a cute redheaded boy. his redheadedness improves the bicycle repair experience, and totally helped sell me on the schwinn. almost.]

i wonder why gmail doesn't work over here. i cleared the cache and even deigned to use ie, and it still just keeps reloading (all the security gibberish in the navigation toolbar keeps refreshing). oh well. you know where i be.

i'm thinking about going to hawaii next month. juliana has found that shipping a dog alone costs more than someone going with the dog, inexplicably. and it's true, i'm at loose ends after election day. i'd ask you guys what you think, but--seriously, who's going to tell me it's a bad idea?

i only brought one book over here, since there are so many, but now i miss my books. i dunno. i'm stupid.

Did you know whales have teeth and bows?

bleah

on the way to work i saw a dead teenage possum. hooray and gross, all at the same time. i say teenager because it was only the size of an average cat, not the mastiff-sized ones we get here. can't someone declare a species war between the raccoons and the possums and coyotes and have them kill each other off?

work has been extra painful this week. i take back all the whining i did about lifting heavy shit, because we've been in training to learn about procedures for election judges. not only is it insanely boring and repetitive, but i also managed to (probably) fail the test we had today. like knowing the difference between a limited ballot and a failsafe one is going to matter when i'm driving the van out to randall's four points in lakeway. snzzgnx! we have two more days. nooooo-ooooo-oooo!

central market is making ridiculously overpriced exotic frozen dinners and selling them at heb. being a connoisseur of all frozen saag paneers, i'm trying it, and the rice is underdone (and sucky), and the spinach is sort of watery (and sucky). the portions are divided evenly between rice and saag, too, so it takes some work to make the rice not suck. or not think about how it sucks. on a scale of one (not having any saag paneer around) to five (eating freshly made saag paneer) this is a solid 1.75 to 2.25. i'm going to stick with tandoori palace if i want it frozen. that one's a 3.75, or 4 if you're really hungry.

the-neighbor-gary is in a band. i didn't ask for the name because, well, you know how i feel about music, and he's got a giant black sabbath poster mounted on foam, which is sort of normal and sort of dorky, and such a tell either way. he did put up a rubber frankenstein head on the doorway molding, and i bet it's sort of halloweeny but more like us (you guys) having monster shit around all the time.

i have been told that little mexico (s. 1st, south of oltorf) is the way to go for mexican food. it's on my list.

i dunno. maybe i'll eat some ice cream later.

This thumb is grate-d. Ow.

Index finger-sized grasshopper.

a mystery solved!

a mystery plaguing our collective minds for a couple of months: why the weekend accretion of south asians at an anonymous corporate park behind half price books? hah, don't let me give it away.

i got some more books. i should probably buy things like people and pet food, but ooh! the chicago manual of style! football physics! the uncorrected proof of jesus freaks, all about the children of god cult! did someone say trixie belden? this indiscriminate (bosh, utter hyperbole, i'm picky--ed.) literary omnivoraciousness gets expensive. (i picked up the omnivore's dilemma, too.) oh, bibliogluttony. you delicious, delicious sin. let me never forsake your tender, albeit slightly dusty, embrace.

want to know the answer? muslims! gathering for some good old-fashioned praying! they look more south asian than middle eastern, with the women's uncovered heads and arms in their very brightly colored sari-esque clothes, but what do i know? i'm a texan who likes shooting guns, eating dead animals, drinking beer, and ... um, complaining about taxes and government?

hmph

the results of this week: bruises, blood, chapped lips, achy everything, and hopefully at least thirty hours of work. i couldn't be bothered to add it up before i left. the larouche nutbags have been setting up their table right next to my bike every day. i hope when i'm old i don't turn into a crackpot who harangues people with lengthy tirades about impeaching cheney. bo-ring.

i have a new neighbor today. gary has moved into jennifer's old apartment, and he doesn't mind the mold. he's around my height, latino, with long hair. he seems nice, if kind of a metal head. that's probably okay. the little downstairs yippy dog tried to go after luna. i'll punt it if it ever does. dogs should have good manners.

i got nothing. shepherd's pie made by dan is very tasty.

hooray books! or, coming attractions...

for the last year or so, a tiny tear in the fabric of space-time has provided me with a selection of e. e. "doc" smith books whenever i go to half price. it's very, very hard to stop buying all these old paperbacks when i've been looking for them out of sheer habit for thirteen years. i put children of the lens back today, since i think both spacebeer and i have them now. i did pick up skylark duquesne and subspace explorers, and i don't even care if i already had them or not.

next up, llana of gathol, pellucidar, and the mastermind of mars, so i can figure out if barsoom is all that rutting old goat heinlein claimed in number of the beast. i find that edgar rice burroughs' mars isn't as gripping as they supposed back in space cadet days, but who knows? i also picked up strata, which looks like a boring, unfunny pratchett book, pre-Discworld. excellent.

besides two more hole-fillers, i got petroleum politics and the texas railroad commission (david f. prindle) and mary poppins, when she wrote: the life of p. l. travers (valerie lawson). i'm so excited. i promise i'll review christopher paolini's eragon and eldest next time - he was certainly quite the impressionable teenager. i've got to figure out the blogger version of ljcut, so that i won't bore most of you with block quotes and examples.

speaking of which, does anybody have a GIS textbook? they look interesting in the store, and i'd like to borrow it for browsing purposes.

Why, twice-baked potatoes!

Oh, dairy me, what will i do with this?